Blog Assignment 4:

BREAKING DOWN POLLAN’S “IN DEFENSE OF FOOD”

by Hasan Abdul Tawab

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The idea that food needs defending seems absurd at first, until you realize that ‘real food’ has become very rare in the marketplace, having been replaced by ‘foodlike’ substances. The rapid industrialization and commercialization of food, abetted by the rise of fast-food culture over the past century, has coincided with a nearly parallel increase in chronic diseases and the overall deterioration of our health.

It is in this context that Michael Pollan, a major proponent of the ‘slow food’ movement, gives us this unique eater’s manifesto. It can be summed up (albeit a little cruelly) as “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan begins by outlining the surprisingly recent rise in what he terms the “culture of nutritionism” and shows us how the scientific community has unknowingly collaborated with the processed food industry, giving us synthetic and modified foods that might kill us, while leaving our collective food conscience confused. He proceeds by looking into the various causes and possible remedies, and finally prescribes his own set of rules which if followed, would make us healthier.

Beneath the rhetoric, the data, and the analogies, Pollan spearheads a very radical argument: What Americans eat today and how they eat must change. By returning to our roots and eating “food that our great-grandmothers would recognize” (which we might call unprocessed and organic food), we could return to a state of health that our ancestors enjoyed.

Why is this argument so radical? Because what Pollan proposes is essentially a change in the American way of life, a revolution which would result in drastic consequences for the food industry, loss of jobs, and possibly even a civil war.

But Pollan is smart enough to overlook these costs in his book, not only because it weakens his stance, but more importantly – he does not want to remind us of the problems associated with unprocessed food: disease, failed crops, hunger, famine, social unrest and ultimately war. The Great Famine of Ireland is a case in point. It is reported to have killed over a million due to hunger and resulted in a mass exodus of another million people to America in the middle of the nineteenth century.

But it could have been easily remedied had the current food scenario been in place. Without genetically-modified/fertilized seeds, the potato crop was a disaster waiting to happen. Without preservatives and processing technology, there was no way the Irish government could bring in produce from other countries, or provide an alternative to feed the population. In the absence of supermarket chains, there was no other place to get food, and nothing else to eat either.

The Irish famine is just a snapshot of what might result if we depend on farms too much.

Overlooked aspects aside, Pollan presents his argument in a very convincing manner. By stating that before the rise of the food industry, humans had managed to not only survive, but prosper, he appeals to the sense of nostalgia that several Americans are undoubtedly in the midst of. He cleverly uses what he calls the “American Paradox” to his advantage. The paradox here is that the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become. The logical solution to this anomaly then, is that we stop worrying about nutrition. But imagine what would happen if we did: this book would fall flat in the bookstores. It wouldn’t sell a copy!

The harsh fact is – Americans continue to worry about nutrition, diet and their health. It’s just that up to now, the food industries have been using this to their benefit, engineering and re-engineering products as the scientific claims and fads come and go. Now of course, our obsession with nutrition can be used as a lever for promoting a new way of life. Pollan thrives on nutritionism, like it or not.

There are subtle hints throughout this book that this was meant to be more than, well, just a book. Witness the naming of the sections – “The Age Of Nutritionism”, “The Western Diet And The Diseases Of Civilization” – all of which lend a rather grandiose quality to his prose. By titling his prose with headings which would not look out of place in a history book, he delicately manipulates our weakness as mortals, and our latent desire to be remembered in a positive light in the annals of history (We don’t want to be remembered as the generation which let the evil food corporations take over, do we?). Or take a look at the rules he sets out towards the end of his manifesto – rules which are thinly-veiled commandments. Pollan may not be a megalomaniac, but In Defense of Food turns out to be something eager for a biblical following.

Pollan must be commended for his rigorous and extensive research – considering that more popular ways of eating and dieting have been adopted by the masses without any significant examination. But the onus is on him to package his argument and “provide the prescriptions that Americans so desperately crave”, in the words of The Washington Post.

To put it simply, Pollan’s book can be broken down into two sections: the first being ‘In Defense Of Food’ where he explores and builds his position, and the second being ‘An Eater’s Manifesto’, where he dispenses his nuggets of advice on how to go about eating the way he recommends it (unfortunately for many people, this may seem like the whole point of the book).